11/8/14

We began the day by watching a TED Talk by Improv Everywhere, detailing some of their ventures into Invisible Theatre. One of the performances that stuck with me, for sheer comedic value, was the one in which a group of around 20-30 people walked around a single Best Buy store wearing khaki pants and blue polo shirts. Some of the other performances shown did, however, convey the purpose of Invisible Theatre somewhat more accurately - to spark conversations among people. The idea is that, after the performers have finished, some stay behind pretending to be bystanders, and provoke conversation about the event and what can/should be done about it.

Next, we did some reading about Forum Theatre. The idea behind this one is that a play is shown to an audience, detailing some kind of oppression. The audience is then asked to volunteer to take the place of one of the play's characters (usually the victim) and do their best to 'do something' about the oppression without breaking character.

We followed this up with an example of Forum Theatre in practice: A play was put on for NYC residents detailing a homeless (presumably) man's fight for custody of his child. Of course, the original play did not end well for the man; that is, after all, the point of Forum. Members of the audience were then asked to take over the role of the man and attempt to obtain custody of the child. A few volunteers attempted to simply argue with the judge, while others actually obtained help from others and gathered evidence to prove their capability.

To kick off our practical activities, we partook in an exercise known as Sticky Paper. Groups of four or so people were given three pieces of paper (or at least one piece less than the number in the group) and these pieces of paper had to be held on one particular group member by the others in the group. This becomes slowly more difficult as more limitations are applied, such as which body parts the paper can be held on or which parts the paper can be held on with.

Finally, we were (in groups again) given a few headlines to choose from and were to create a freeze based on a headline of our choice. My group chose "Teenagers forced to work for peanuts", presumably for the quirkiness of the headline itself.

Following this, we then expanded upon this freeze to create three scenes on the issue. The resulting play that my group created was surprisingly decent, actually, effectively presenting the issue and building up to a conflict and a resolution (although not a happy one).

Okay, this one's permanent, I promise.